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The ProTon-Europe thematic network was launched in Brussels in January 2003.  It was created for the purpose of promoting a more evenly balanced commercial uptake of publicly funded R&D throughout Europe by further developing the skills of those working in this field. At the same time ProTon-Europe (Public Research Organisations Technology Transfer Offices) set out to become a pan-European platform for academic technology transfer, by representing the interest of the technology office profession at the EU level.

ProTon-Europe is spearheaded by a partnership between EARMA, TII (the European Association for the Transfer of Technology, Innovation and Industrial Information), and Sopartec, (the research exploitation company of the Universite Catholique de Louvain) as project coordinator.  Funding is provided from the European Commission, and ProTon-Europe is part of their Gate2Growth initiative. A dozen experienced technology transfer offices (TTO's) from public universities and research institutes are leading ProTon-Europe’s substantive Work Packages. These cover:

  • technology office structure and management,
  • patenting and IPR,
  • licensing,
  • interaction with industry,
  • spin-off and campus companies,
  • policy development,
  • continuous professional development and training,
  • good practice and toolkits,
  • observatory,
  • representation and sustainability.
The Workpackage leaders, together with the network secretariat are undertaking the tasks of identifying, compiling and disseminating the best of the technology transfer knowledge to the TTO community across Europe.  The network secretariat based in Brussels is supervised by an experienced network manager assisted by a professional administrator. The Management Board is comprised of the coordinator (Sopartec) acting as chair, a representative from EARMA and from TII plus the elected chair of the Steering Committee (the leaders of the 12 Work Packages). The Network Manager attends the Management Board meetings.

ProTon Europe also supports a Staff Exchange Programme for the employees of organisations that are full members of the network. The purpose of these exchanges is to support the transfer of good practice between ProTon Europe members. The exchanges, lasting from 2-5 days, are fully funded by ProTon Europe.